Paper Title
Book Reviews: More Than a Mouthful
Keywords
- Rape
- Feminism
- Anti-Rape Movement
- Sexual Assault
- Public Policy
- Activism
- Backlash
- Rape Crisis Centers
- Feminist Methodologies
- Historical Development
- Public Agenda
- Institutional Response
- Social Change
- Policy Refinements
- Document Analysis
- Key Informants
Journal
Research Impact Tools
Publication Info
Volume: 25 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 396-397
Published On
December, 2001
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Abstract
Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault, M ARIA B EVACQUA . Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 2000. 280 pp. $18.95(paper), ISBN: 1-55553-446-5.Reviews 397The book aims to (1) examine the history, growth, and impact of the feminist anti-rape movement; and (2) provide a thorough picture of the anti-rape backlash that began in 1991. The first three chapters focus on the years prior to 1980, tracing the development of rape on the feminist agenda, anti-rape organizing methods and strategies, and the historical development of rape on the public policy agenda. The fourth chapter tackles the same issues from 1980 to the present. The book ends with a short conclusion chapter evaluating the social change accomplished by the anti-rape movement. Two concerns are noticeable immediately. The first is variability in the level of detail and coverage. The first three chapters devote 141 pages to documenting ideas and events between 1970and 1980. In contrast, only 41 pages are allocated to cover the explosion of knowledge, institution-building, and public policy developments since 1980. A second concern is the data sources. The author relied on feminist methodologies including inspection of documents and interviews with 13 key informants. None of the small group of rape scholars whose work is cited in the text was interviewed. Nor were any of the central players in the date-rape backlash on either side interviewed. The omission of rape scholars is puzzling because the author acknowledges that activism has been concentrated in towns with large college and university populations and observes that studies of rape have led to organizing and policy refinements. Likewise, the documents examined were centered almost exclusively on New York and Boston. Although rape crisis centers from other locations are briefly mentioned in places, their papers were not systematically studied. By the early 1970s, there were exemplary rape crisis centers in every region of the U.S
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